IRON MAN 3

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Iron Man 3 sees the return of Robert Downey Jnr as Tony Stark with his buddies Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), James Rhodes (Don Cheadle) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau – who has no left the directing duties to a man that knows action – Shane Black).

The first Iron Man film is the near-perfect origin story, but Iron Man 2 suffered from a short development period, before everything Marvel could be smashed together in The Avengers movie.

Iron Man 3 introduces the terrorist dictator The Mandarin, portrayed by the superb Sir Ben Kingsley, with the often chameleon Guy Pearce and the lovely Rebecca Hall adding wonderful support to this stellar cast.

The plot of the movie is quite political, but does manage to simplify itself once Tony Stark can focus on his enemy, all for the sake of revenge. Pepper Potts has a larger role to play and indeed has the bigger development arc of any character in this film. We see her being technically capable to deal with all things within and outside of Iron Man’s volatile world.

What I really loved is the versatile uses of the Iron Man armour, in various forms of construction, often improvised and highly imaginative. All of which underlays what this franchise series is really about .. not just the suit … but instead the human that wears it. Thus, we see Tony Stark also enjoy many moments of ambition and ability where the man himself has to resolve his issues and overcome challenges without the technology. Tony Stark is Iron Man, but Iron Man is not always Tony Stark.

I greatly enjoyed the film, I thought it was quite smart at being able to execute tricky plot elements and the final third of the movie is truly exciting. Iron Man 3 maintains a great level of humour and lightness which allows itself to never takes matters too seriously, and a lot of that credit goes to Robert Downey Jnr.